The following review
is for an August 22, 2001 Dickey Betts concert held at Jaxx Night Club,
6355 Rolling Road, Springfield Virginia

Dickey Betts

by Buzz McClain for
the Washington Post

Any number of guitarists could play
the same rig -- 1957 Gibson Les Paul guitar, pedal effects and amplifier
-- and never in a million licks re-create the natural harmonic tone that
Dickey Betts finds in virtually every note. His sound is as distinctive as
those of Keith Richards and Chuck Berry.

Wednesday night before a large and
enthusiastic crowd at Jaxx, Betts and his six-piece band roared through
one Southern rock anthem after another in two generous sets that confirmed
the 57-year-old guitarist's place as a seminal artist in a genre he
practically owns. Betts may be troubled -- last week he was arrested and
charged with assaulting his wife -- but his muse is intact.

As in the past with his previous
band, the Allman Brothers Band (which booted him out last summer for bad
behavior), the fresh material by Betts on the new CD "Let's Get
Together" combines rock, boogie, blues, country and jazz -- often in
the same frenzied jam.

Bett's chemistry with
singer-guitarist Mark May wasn't as combustive onstage as with Duane
Allman, with whom Betts traded stinging leads on many of the Brothers'
classics, but May more than held his own, particularly in the looser, more
jam-oriented second set. Kris Jensen's saxophone added propulsive jaxx
rhythms to the mix, and Matt Zeiner's Hammond B-3 organ underscored the
twin guitar leads with a New Orleans feel.

"Ramblin' Man" and
"Jessica," two Allman Brothers fan favorites, were not included
in the show, but an extended "Southbound" and "Blue
Sky" seemed to slake the crowd's appetite for Allman material.